How Clean is Clean?

Tue. 8:30-10:00 a.m., Centennial F

A helicopter rescue in the middle of a hurricane is exciting; figuring out where to put the boards, concrete, glass, steel, and polychlorinated biphenyls is not. But disasters are, at root, big messes, and cleaning up is one of the major (and relatively unstudied) problems following hazard events. This is even truer when disasters affect infrastructure in ways that lead to chemical or biological contamination. What do we know about how to handle the clean-up of such substances—clean-up that takes a long time and is invisible to the eye?

Hazardous contamination presents issues ranging from technical aspects of detection and material removal to social aspects of informing and updating the public regarding the clean-up process. The concept of “clean” is complex: how clean a contaminated site can be made may not match public expectations of how clean it should be. The panelists in this session will examine these issues and offer suggestions for optimizing clean-up and, at the same time, public acceptance of the process.

Peter Jutro, Moderator
EPA-National Homeland Security Research Center

Marcy Rockman, Panelist
EPA-National Homeland Security Research Center

R. Edwin Sosebee, Panelist
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers

Todd Kamps, Panelist
City of Aurora (Colo.) Fire Department